


the last man standing

by Ryah_Ignis



Series: Season 12 Codas [22]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x22 Coda, F/M, guess who has two thumbs and is still super bitter about eileen, it's the author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 02:59:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10958244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryah_Ignis/pseuds/Ryah_Ignis
Summary: “It’s us.”The picture is clearly ripped from the security cameras at the retirement home.  Both of their backs are to the camera, but he’d recognize her bun anywhere, and it’s not like his large frame is easily mistaken for someone else.“Friends and allies,” Sam reads aloud.They’d gone after her first.If they hadn’t decided to work the banshee case, if they’d managed to solve it without ever meeting Eileen, if they’d never met, she might be alive.  She might have been further down the list, and they might have ended the Men of Letters before they got to her."Jody and Sam talk about Eileen.  12x22 Coda





	the last man standing

Sam takes her file.

The Men of Letters have one on each of them.  Jody plucks hers out of the filing cabinet, smiles in satisfaction when she sees _Alex Jones and Claire Novak_ marked as her family, and then tosses it over her shoulder.  Sam’s file is twice as thick as anyone else’s, but he doesn’t even bothering opening it.

“Torch it.”

Two of the remaining hunters—one of them Walt, which amuses Sam more than he’d care to admit—scurry off, obeying his orders.  It’s a little intimidating, knowing that they trust him this fully, but there’s also something right about it.

Once they deal with the Nephilim, maybe it’ll be worth setting up a hunters’ network.  Be the Man of Letters he’s meant to be.

He and Jody clamber into her truck.  Sam accidentally knocks the file sideways as he seats himself in the too-small cab.  It only takes Jody a sideways glance at the name to realize.

“Oh.” She goes quiet as she starts the engine and stays so as they pull out on to the gravel road.  Then, “I didn’t realize you were friends.  Otherwise I would have gone to the morgue myself.  You didn’t need to see that.”

Sam snaps the file shut as he pulls it on to his lap, tugging it out of Jody’s grasp.

“Yeah.  It’s fine.”

Jody scrutinizes him closely. “Friends?”

He really doesn’t want to have this conversation, but he and Jody are going to be stuck in this car together for quite a while yet.  So instead of curling in on himself like wants to, Sam lets out a sigh.

“I—yeah.  I thought maybe we could—but I didn’t want to rush anything, so I never—”

Never _what_?  Made a move?  Tried to look after her?  Asked her to stay?  Sam tries and fails not to think about how any one of those could have kept her safe.

“I know.  It hurts, doesn’t it?”

Another twist in his chest. “I wish it didn’t.”

Jody glances over him before her eyes flick back to the road.  They’ve made it back to the highway already.  Evidently, the Men of Letters doesn’t—didn’t?—have the same reservations that hunters do about being close to civilians.

“No you don’t.”

Sam thinks back to the year where he didn’t care about anything at all. “Yeah.  You’re right.”

It takes every ounce of willpower he has to open the file again.  Her face stares back up at him, a snapshot taken at the retirement home.  They’d been watching even then.  Sam’s stomach rolls.

“What does it say?” Jody asks quietly.

Sam slides the paperclip free.  As the truck rolls over a bump in the road, the papers shift on his lap, but none of them fall.  He folds the picture and puts it in his pocket.  What he’s going to do with it, he’s not sure.

“They knew.” Of course they did.  Sam swallows bile down. “It says right here under _weaknesses_.”

His knuckles whiten as he clenches his hands into fists.  Only when he feels the sharp bite of pain from his nails digging into the fleshy part of his palms does he stop.  They’d considered Eileen’s deafness a weakness.

And then he realizes.

“Those bastards.”

He’s going to kill Ketch slowly.  And then find the nearest crossroads, bring him back, and kill him fast just to see if it’s any more satisfying that way.  His heart is pounding so loudly, and his blood is roaring so loudly that he almost misses what Jody says when she leans over.

“They’re dead, Sam.  We beat them.”

“They used a _hellhound!_ ” His hand comes down on the dashboard, rattling the cab. “They knew she didn’t have a prayer of fighting it!”

Even an utterly brilliant hunter like Eileen couldn’t hope to fight off a monster they could neither see nor hear.  Sam revises the horrible mental image of her death in his head.  Now it’s tinged with frustration along with the fear and desperation.

“Sam.”

He starts at the hand Jody lays on his arm.

“That meant they knew she was so competent that they couldn’t take her in a fair fight.”

Knowing that doesn’t lessen the pain of picturing trying to ward off a creature she couldn’t beat.  Sam swallows, hard.

“Yeah.  Yeah.”

It probably isn’t a good idea, but Sam flicks through the rest of the file anyway. They’d known she was a legacy (though someone had underlined the Irish part of it, as if it were less legitimate that way).

“Oh.”

The single word punches out before he can reel it back in.  Jody keeps her eyes on the road this time, but he can feel the questions coming off of her in waves.

“It’s us.”

The picture is clearly ripped from the security cameras at the retirement home.  Both of their backs are to the camera, but he’d recognize her bun anywhere, and it’s not like his large frame is easily mistaken for someone else.

“Friends and allies,” Sam reads aloud.

They’d gone after her _first._

If they hadn’t decided to work the banshee case, if they’d managed to solve it without ever meeting Eileen, if they’d never met, she might be alive.  She might have been further down the list, and they might have ended the Men of Letters before they got to her.

If Sam thought before that he couldn’t hate the Men of Letters or himself any more, he’d been wrong.

“And I thought Dean had all of the Winchester self-loathing genes.” Jody rapped out a short rhythm on the steering wheel. “Sam.  I’m hardly the one to talk, but you can’t blame yourself.  We’ve done everything we can to avenge her.”

Sam closes his eyes. “I’m tired of avenging people.”

He doesn't want to be the last man standing. He’s tired of burying friends.  Of burying—well.

“Yeah,” Jody sighs.

They sit in silence for a while.  Sam thinks that he’s dodged the worst of overprotective mother bear Jody, but her time with Alex and Claire taught her well.  She steals another glance over at him.

“And Lucifer?”

Sam sucks in a breath.  Knowing that he’s out there again, that he can do whatever he wants and they can’t stop him—God.  This has been one hell of a week.

“We’ll help you,” Jody says once it becomes clear that Sam isn’t going to be able to respond. “Donna and I.  Not the girls—unless they sneak by me somehow, but—”

Sam cuts her off. “We couldn’t possibly ask you to do that.”

He can’t stand the thought of losing another friend to Lucifer.  He never wants to face him again, but he’d rather do that than involve anyone else.

Jody presses on the brakes as they hit traffic.  Then she looks over at him. “Sam.  I’m serious.  Anything you need.  Even if it’s just someone to talk to.”

Despite everything, he smiles. “Thanks.  Really.”

She pats him on the knee. “That’s what family’s for.”

 

 


End file.
